well, here's a delayed but oddly incomplete update from the dynamic duo's visit to the land known as New Zealand. i have had the pictures for a while, but as previously hinted at i do not have certain pictures that i wanted. they would be pictures of Richard stabbing a perfectly harmless but at the same time broken Holden cassette deck with some sort of knife. Dad still has not sent them on, so i guess i shall have to press on without them. sorry, stabbing of cassette deck enthusiasts!
Dad and Richard went off on some sort of business trip to Australia during August, and thankfully their calendar allowed them to go and visit Gillian, Katie, Daniel and of course Grant at the same time. nice one!
although it might very well been that they were up to some sort of work whilst in New Zealand too, really. unless Gillian and (and this would be plausible) Grant decided to show the two of them some sort of industrial estate.
yep, that is Grant in sunglasses there, but more on that later.
for all i know industrial estates could be the place to see in New Zealand, they might get more excited about them than i have implied here. New Zealand does seem to have other places, however, that Richard would be rather more enthusiastic about seeing. this would include the below, really.
i am delighted that Richard was able to get over and see Gillian again, as it has been quite a while! i would love to too, of course, but Rich and Gill were always rather closer. well, hardly a surprise there - both shared having a sensational, fantastic know-it-all brother, after all.
oh, and if anyone is wondering if Dad still does that thing where he grabs random numbers, waves them in the air and insists on having his picture taken with them, the answer is below.
that would be a yes, then, if you didn't see the picture.
speaking of Dad, one of his hobbies that has developed over the last few years has certainly been taking to the seas and befriending gents who live with other gents on boats. i am in no position to comment further on the specifics of that, but i can say that it does mean Richard got to go on a boat ride, of course.
i have no idea if Dad met any of his favoured sailors on this, as it were, cruise. i would take a guess at the answer being "yes", though.
something else you will note is that, above as below, Grant is wearing sunglasses.
i am pretty sure i know why this is the case. just as prior to Dad's first visit Grant probably had no idea that there were all that many 'turf accountants' in New Zealand, it likely the case that he had "absolutely no idea" there were so many pubs there either. this, going on my experience, changes dramatically with Richard arriving in your city within some 4 - 6 hours.
to underline the point, here are Richard and Gillian looking at a map of some sort.
i am prepared to wager a small, friendly amount that what Richard is pointing at has with it the words "look. there. pub." being spoken as the soundtrack.
whereas i do not wish to distract too much from how important pub locations are to Richard, there are somewhat more wished for scenes from New Zealand, and they would feature our niece and nephew, Katie and Daniel.
absolutely wonderful to see them, especially as New Zealand seems to have quite restrictive laws around sending people photographs, which is surely the reason Grant and Gillian do not send them on a more frequent basis.
there is no limitation on how many photographs their Grandad can and indeed will take, of course. here is one he took using, apparently, the element of surprise on young Katie.
Daniel looks like he is "in" on whatever is going on there!
and here are the two of them at one of them big massive countdown clock thingies; this one counting down to a certain World Cup about to be held in New Zealand, although obviously it shall be won by England.
i'm not sure that they or anyone else would be supposed to be climbing over the massive countdown clock thing, but Grandad will have told them it would be a good ide and he can be rather persuasive if need be.
Katie sent me along a most excellent bookmark that i shall be using with pride. thank you, Katie! i have no doubt that Daniel would have liked to send me one too (for i do read more than one book at a time, me being all that clever and that), but was obviously busy. Gillian, being the personification of diplomacy, would no doubt have described Uncle Richard to Daniel as being "entertaining", and to that end here is Daniel enjoying watching Richard tear up everyone's lunch into really small pieces and throwing it sporadically at seagulls, or whatever version of aquatic preferring birds it is that they have over there.
and as a final image, unless i get some class car cassette deck stabbing pictures in the mail soon, here are Gillian and Grant engaged in some of the kind of domestic action they do in New Zealand.
i quite like the deft skill and precision Grant is using to hang up socks there. i am presuming that he planned to take as long as possible to do this in order to avoid hearing his brother-in-law saying "come on Grant, i have found another pub, let us go for just the one drink.".
many thanks indeed for the excellent pictures, and it looks like all had a most excellent time!!!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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